Goodwill to all men!

 And so it's nearly here.

 Our relationship has just survived another year of putting the Christmas tree up together. Apportioning tasks and letting the other person stick to them as the key. Richard does the lights, the wiring, and all the technical things, and I unpack the boxes of baubles and tinsel etc and start strewing them over the tree. Whereas in Acting I know that the principal that works most successfully is 'less is more', it's not a maxim that I apply to decorating our Christmas tree. Rich would prefer a slightly sparser look I think, whereas I'm all in favour of throwing the whole box  at the tree and seeing what lands! 

The joy about about unpacking the box each Christmas is that there are particular decorations in there that we  have collected from our travels all over the world. Among others we have a gondola in a glass ball from Venice, a treetop decoration from Macy's in New York, a cartoon penguin from Reykjavik, and in a surprise move, a kangaroo from Australia.  There were many years when I didn't have anybody to decorate a christmas tree with, and it's a special hour or so on the Sunday afternoon before Christmas to put on the Christmas tape, and turn part of the lounge into our very own grotto. 

 The Christmas spirit is beginning to course through me.  Actually at this moment in time, I think it's the third cold of the autumn that is beginning to course through me as I am  feeling particularly rundown  and below par. So much so that we cancelled our visit to my agent's birthday party last night - another of our Christmas practices.

Perhaps it's been dealing with all the online shopping that has taken the edge off my health. It's supposed to be simpler. Clicking on purchases you want to make from the comfort of your own home (and of course in my case, as regular readers will know, on my brand-new iMac) and then just waiting for them to turn up. Ah Reader, if only it were that simple. One of the main problems is that you don't know what courier service the supplier will use. I have to say that one service to come out on top this Christmas has been the Royal mail. @RoyalMail.  There has been a lot of early morning parcel deliveries, and a lot less of little red and white cards posted through the door. On the two occasions when I have had to visit the sorting office, it's less than half a mile away and they've given me the parcel in super quick time. 

If only that could be said of all other couriers. My winner of the "Sorry You Were Out And We Couldn't Really Be Bothered" award this year has to be a company called My Hermes. @myhermes.  For those of you who don't know, Hermes was the winged messenger of the gods. I just hope the gods weren't waiting for a chocolate hamper from Thorntons. That's one of the deliveries that my hermes have been trying to make.

Now of course it's perfectly acceptable that they are going to deliver at a time when you're not in. Even with the excitement of Christmas upon us,  we have to leave the house sometimes.  I think the My Hermes van waits around the corner to watch me head for the bus stop. Its  attempted deliveries seem to be so perfectly timed.  I know when they supposedly have delivered because I can "track" the delivery on their website. The one thing I can't do on their website is inform them of when I'm going to be in -  those little gaps in my hectic social life when I will be at home. It says that as I'm not the  sender of the parcel I'm not allowed to change anything about its delivery.  Which seems rather odd as I am the person who knows when it could be delivered.

It seems to have defeated Thorntons too.  An email to their chief executive officer (always go to the top with a nice kind polite letter)  seemed to be the only alternative after a phone call to their customer service line told me that I would have to wait 30 minutes to speak to a chocolate adviser(Sic)!  In my email to Mr Jonathan Hart (Oh how good he was in that series with Stephanie Powers!),  I told him that if it was going to take me 30 minutes to get through to a chocolate advisor, heaven knows how long it would take me to be able to speak to a real person.  As well as responding to my email within 20 minutes, he also got the joke. Thorntons have done their very best to ensure that the hamper gets to me, but the main problem that has to be addressed here is the absolutely diabolical service of the courier.  Mercifully my hermes were not around at the time of the arrival of the three wise men, otherwise the Nativity might have been a rather different story. Gold, frankincense, and a useless tracking number. So check who's delivering your parcel and if you've got an alternative, then Royal Mail are not to be sniffed at. Unless of course, you're on your third cold of the Autumn, when everyone is to be sniffed at..

 Sometimes at Christmas nice people deliver things. Last Tuesday I went up to see Mum and, as is our custom when I go for a visit, we went down to Rotherham to do some shopping. By the end of our visit, which included the customary toasted teacake in the bus station cafe, we had several bags from a variety of retail emporia  as diverse as Superdrug, Poundland, and Argos. On the bus journey back, caught in the confusion of getting a 91-year-old woman to dismount from the bus safely - she has a habit of getting up from her seat early and throwing herself at the front of the bus from the inside in an attempt to stop it -  the Superdrug bag was left on the floor. On unpacking our retail endeavours in Mum's room we noticed its absence. The two books of first-class stamps in there alone raised its value to the level of a police search, to say nothing of the two boxes of paracetamol,  and a bumper pack of cod liver oil tablets. Our disappointment was intense.

Imagine our surprise when one of the lovely girls at Rotherwood  brought  mum a cup of tea  and told her there had just been a phone call from a lady who had found the shopping. The big question was how she had been able to trace its owner. Obviously the bag had been found by Rotherham's answer to Miss Marple. Mum shopping list had been written on the back of a prescription re-order form from Lloyds pharmacy. The shopping list was still in the bag. Having found the shopping, the woman had rung that particular branch of Lloyds pharmacy to say that she found some goods belonging to Mrs F Clayton. The pharmacy had trusted her (that's one in your face Data Protection Act!) and told her that Mrs Clayton lived at the Rotherwood care home.  After the phone call the woman came round at 5:30 PM to return the bag, contents intact (the stamps alone could probably have paid for her Christmas) and would accept no reward for her good deed.  I hope wherever she is, she's got a big  inner glow, because she deserves it. Obviously she doesn't work for my Hermes. Interestingly enough with the name of the courier firm, if one only changed the second 'm' to a 'p'   one would get more of an idea of just how irritating and painful they are.

Richard,  Mum and I  will be spending Christmas in a country hotel being waited on hand and foot. It's a treat and we are looking forward to it. But wherever we are,  wherever you are,  I've always found that it's people who make Christmas.

 So I hope you have a really happy one, with all your presents delivered on time.